As more and more victimless crimes are invented by our government, more and more people are being sent to prisons. Immigration law is no exception to this rule, and housing those in violation of it has become yet another expensive, government-created problem.

We find it ironic and pitiful that as our country struggles with debt and Republicans claim to be so concerned with taming it, the government deems it prudent to spend all kinds of money to run detention centers for "criminals" whose only "crime" is wanting to work in the US. Surely, the money could be better spent paying down the debt, and the people in the detention centers would be better off as productive, tax-paying members of society!

For nearly a decade leaders of Southwest Ranches have kept their scheme hushed from residents, now the project will become federal government's largest immigrant detention center. The town would have to pay $150,000 each year to keep the prison, but officials say the town would turn a profit by getting 4 percent of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays the company operating the prison to hold inmates there.

Many residents finally caught wind of the idea this year, when the immigration agency announced a tentative deal, and they're angry. They've held protests at public meetings, contemplated whether to recall the mayor before his March election and whether to amend the town charter to make it easier to fire the city attorney pushing the deal.

The objection over the prison has created an odd set of allies among the town's affluent residents, many of whom are wary of illegal immigrants, and longtime activists who fight for immigrants, legal or not.

Poor babies!

While a detention center is an unsightly blemish on any community, you reap what you sow. If you do not want ugly detention centers popping up all over the place, then perhaps you ought to rethink your support of current immigration law.